iOS 15 Home app and HomeKit have excessive battery drain

i am currently under 15.3.1. my problem seems to be solved, too.

all smart home devices are in one network again. i only separated my home office hardware and the guest network.

BUT: i changed my wifi hardware from avm fritz... to Zyxel.

Nice to know, maybe the end of this endless "journey". Apple Support has reached me today in order to tell me to update. Asked for more technical details, but level 2 support was only able to say the engineers have tried to fix the issue in that release. Still in contact with the support in case of issue's persistence.

Ditto. iPad Pro still draining when idle faster than I'd like, but that's probably its age and it's a fraction of the rate it was before.

Wish Apple would acknowledge these issues and fixes, at least for those who don't follow them here!

I've been using the IOS 15.4 RC since it was available (without updating my homepod). The battery drain persist when only the iphone is updated. The drain has stop completely as soon as the homepod is updated.

Yay !!

Unfortunately for me no changes after iOS 15.4.

I still see massive Home app battery drain, however this has nothing to do with thread as I do not have any thread devices plus no openthread.arpa requests

It's getting worse for me. Home App uses 40% of battery on my iPhone. Basically my battery dies over night just from the Home battery drain. I also got Home pods and Apple TV. Is there still no solution?

Since you also got Pihole active, I wonder if it's because of blocking of certain requests, that worsens the issue (I also got a DNS tracker blocking at router level)

So this and one other post solved a year+ long mystery for me!!! I went away to the in-laws for a week and I noticed when away from my network my overnight battery drain went from 15/20% to 2/3%.

I’ve turned off facial recognition on the cameras this was it. Just that. Fixed. Sigh. Phew.

thanks LOADS. I thought my phone was defective. Nope. Just a HomeKit funny.

Ok, so after nearly a month, here is what I can say:

On my side the issue is almost gone, but not totally; background activity has fallen to 8/20 minutes per day. Still better than previous versions, but we cannot say the issue is fixed (on my iPhone 8 with iOS 14.8.1, no background activity at all; same network, same setup, but different OS).

I am still in contact with Apple Support, I am waiting for news about it.

For people who have higher background activity (I know, maybe stupid question): have you updated every Apple devices, including Apple TV and HomePods, to iOS 15.4.1?

My iPhone (even on 15.5) is the only device being affected in the past. My other devices (esp. iPad) are of course also connected to Home, but have no background activity draining the battery. I've to say that I added lots of smart home devices over the past month - including a lock, some Eve products using Thread, Hue etc..

Maybe they are all trying to communicate with my iPhone via Home and their native apps. It's probably the handoff, API etc between e.g. the Eve, Hue etc apps and the Home app. Still monitoring the issue...

Currently on my iPhone 13 pro it is no more home app that drains the battery, it’s the mobile app of idealo.de. After deinstalling this app, the drain moves to another app. After deinstalling that app, the drain moves again to another app. And so on…

it is really annoying.

Yeah, the thing is that I'm also working from home and on some days the Home app has 90% battery use, even in battery saving mode (!!) all the time! It's getting worse (even on 15.5) - so Apple is clearly not addressing the issue, which is concerning.

Maybe stupid thing: have you tried after the update to sign out from your iCloud account, restart and then re-sign in?

On my side I have a few battery drain, but still present. It's just unbelievable that Apple is taking too much time to address that significant issue..

No more answer from Apple Support for 3 weeks.

It seems clear that that issue has been brought by iOS 15. Is it so hard to make some regression test alongside iOS 14?

Hello everyone,

on Apple side, the support told me the engineers are investigating and they cannot provide any timing about resolution. iOS 15.6 didn't resolve the battery drain.

After spending months contacting them, they finally decided to give an answer different from asking to collect logs over logs.

Just unbelievable how long it is taking to resolve that battery drain.

Did someone find a solution or a workaround?

I've tried wiping the iPhone and starting from scratch, but the problem is still there. It appears to be something with the iCloud account. Removing my wife from the home, unchecking it in iCloud, and (for good measure) deleting the Home app is the only thing that fixes this for my wife.

Just a quick update from me:

Apple support came back and said that engineering is aware of the issue and that there’s no solution right now. That I just need to wait for some future update where this is fixed.

One thing that’s (at least temporarily) worked is signing out of iCloud and back in. We’re a day in and the home app is using more battery than I’d expect , but way less. Something for folks to try.